About a month ago ABC's Good Morning America advertised a "Cool Cubicle Challenge" that encouraged people to send in short videos of their cubicles. Basically you were supposed to show them why your cubicle is fun/cool. Obviously, Kevin and I jumped on the idea. We have pretty cool cubes, it was a chance to get on national TV, and we like to make videos.

First I went to Cedar Rapids and helped Kevi film his video, which turned out dope after the editing. Then my cousin Anthony and I filmed my video, which also turned out decent.

We sent them in, hoping that we would both get on GMA, even if we didn't win... we just wanted a second or 2 on national TV. So, about a week after submitting them, we found this on GMA's website, haha. …

Lately I've been really heavy into organizing and backing up all my pictures and video. I recently bought a fireproof safe to keep miniDV tapes and picture CDs in. I also have copies of most picture CDs at work. Last week I even went and had all of my old advantix film rolls converted to CDs (22 rolls - $120). Then, over the course of an evening I organized them all into folders in chronological order on my PC (just like all my other pics are organized). The next step was to buy a scanner this week and scan the rest of my pictures. Then I'd make a couple backups of everything and store them in different locations.

You always hear of people "losing all their memories in a fire" ... I don't want this to happen. So everything is …

This weekend was pretty laid back, booo. Friday night, Jason, Jodi, Nathan, Andy and I went to the Funny Bone. The comedian was pretty good... he offended a lot of people, which is awesome... "racism is gay" haha.

Saturday, kari came over for the Cornell 150th Anniversary Gala at the Des Moines Country Club. It wasn't a rockin party or anything but they didn't ask alumni for money once! ...I was surprised by that. Lots of good food, drinks, and a nice video. There were less than 10 people there that went to school with me (everyone else was old), but it was still decent.

My clie broke while trying to get a wi-fi signal there, which is sad. I can't figure out this error at all: DataMgr.c, Line:9524, Index out of range. I only …

Nordstrom department stores started selling heely's which is a big deal because that's a huge account for us to get. So HSL asked if I would be willing to go to Chicago to do a couple Demos at the stores up there. I was orginally supposed to meet Zach and Aaron there to do demos, but they couldn't make it. So instead, Kari went with me, and I did the demos by myself.

Anyway, Chicago was really fun again. Friday night, Kari and I ate at Rock Bottom. It was fun to see the differences between the restaurants in Des Moines and Chicago. The menus were pretty much the same, the beers were pretty much the same but had different names, however everything was priced differently. For Kari and I to each have 1 mug it was $11, where here it …

10:09|<xy_goat> all you gotta do is start linking to some blogs
10:09|<xy_goat> like in a post be like "harper sucks" and link to me

I'm going to see this suck-face this weekend. plus i'm doing demos for heely's. it'll be fun.

Kill Hannah and HIM are touring together, which rules so much. I want to go to one the shows soooo bad. Kari and I can get plane tickets pretty easily, so we were even considering flying to NY, LA, or even Philadelphia to see them together.

But every stop on the tour is on a bad date. I'm either doing demos, working, or going to weddings. The closest that they're going to be is Chicago... which is still a 5 hour drive. It's on a Sunday night... the same Sunday that I have a Soap shoe demo in Iowa City. I also have only 1 more vacation day.

Stupid stupid Iowa. Why can't Des Moines be bigger.... or even Omaha, or Minneapolis.

I wrote a new picture system for the site. It's pretty dope. All I really have to do now is put pictures into the folders and it automatically parses through them and prints them all out. It doesn't use a database or anything. If you hover over the thumbnails they change to color too, w00t.

I also added a few pictures while I was working on it.

Kevin got some tickets to go to the Tesla show in Des Moines tonight. However, the person he was going with sold out, so I decided that I'd go to the concert with him. ...Holy 80s.

Everyone there was seriously stuck in the 80s (MAYBE early 90s). Kevin and I were within the youngest 3% there. The only people younger than us were there with their parents, haha.

Here are a few things to note about the night: big hair, mullets, nascar hats, fist pumping, bangs, receding hairlines, air guitar, dude with stomach hanging out of shirt, shoulderless pink shirts with fishnet tights, etc.

however, one guy seriously "LOVES my show." he told me, haha. I'M NOT BAM!

one more thing to note, Amy Smart has now taken the lead as my biggest …

So, tonight I ordered a 14" Sausage/Mushroom pizza from Papa John's. I was pretty hungry, so I ended up eating 4 pieces. But a 14" pizza isn't that big... so that's actually not that much. Anyway, afterwards I was curious as to how bad for you pizza is. I looked up the nutritional information at Papa John's website. At first I was like, "whoa that's actually not bad at all."

But then I noticed that 1 serving was 1 slice. So then I multiplied everything by 4. Here is the breakdown (percentages based on a 2,000 calorie diet):

Calories	1344g	(67%)
Fat	56g	(86%)
Sodium	3576g	(149%)
Carbs	152g	(51%)

Man, it's a good thing I ate subway for lunch.

Last night after work, I drove to Mount Vernon (2 hour drive) to meet Kari and Steph. Then we drove to the Green Room in Iowa City to see Heiruspecs and my friend Luke (aka know1, aka aeon gray) perform.

Anyway, Luke was performing with Angle and DJ Wickedawesome (a friend of theirs). Man, it was the best soft focus show I've seen. I've only seen like 3 before then... but still. It was the DJ's first live performance, but he sounded really good. Luke and Angle also sound incredibly good together.

After that Animosity went on, who was good. It sorta matched some of the psychopathic records style music that I listen to, but his set was a little to long. Especially for an opener. Right after him there was this DJ that was …

Haha, my life rules. I have no idea who this kid is.

Name: michael
Email: [email protected]
Phone:
Business:

derek you are a peice of sh*t. you ruin cool things by making them corporate and lame. i hope you sleep well on a bed of money knowing that you sold-out the kids. kill yourself you corporate whore.

email recieved from the Truespin-media.com contact form.

w00t, I got my duo today.. It boots and everything works perfect. The next step is finding a mac that I can use to apple talk to it. otherwise, I could setup a linux box and figure out how to use apple talk through that. Harper found me a good site to help me with that, here. It will definitely come in handy.

On another note, this is really really funny.

Today, I built my own mini segway. It rules so much. Check out the pictures of the yellow guy riding it around my office.

segway 1 - segway 2 - segway 3 - segway 4

Last night on ebay i won an auction for the dopest laptop ever. Seriously, when it came out, it was $3,750, and I got it for $70.44, including shipping.

Here are the specs:
PowerBook Duo 280c
Codename: Yeager
CPU: Motorola MC68LC040
CPU Speed: 33 MHz
Bus Speed: 33 MHz
Data Path: 32 bit
ROM: 1 MB
RAM Type: unique
Minimum RAM Speed: 70 ns
Onboard RAM: 4 MB
RAM Slots: 1
Maximum RAM: 40 MB
Level 1 Cache: 8 kB
Screen: 8.4" active matrix
Maximum Resolution: 8 bit 640x480/16 bit 640x400
Slots: modem, Dock (152-pin PDS)
Hard Disk: 240 MB
Serial: 1
Audio Out: mono 8 bit
Audio In: mono 8 bit
Speaker(s): mono
Microphone: mono
Gestalt ID: 103
Power: 25 Watts
Weight: 4.8 lbs.
Dimensions: 1.5" H x 10.9" W x 8.5" D
Minimum OS: …

Ok, cell phone decisions are some of the hardest and most stressful decisions that i have to make.

I really want to be able to be able to have the best possible communication options that I can get. First I was going to get that Danger Sidekick, which is still dope, but there are things about it that i don't like.

New Plan: 2 devices, bluetooth, and wifi
1. Upgrade my Clie to the UX50, which has wifi and bluetooth
2. Buy a bluetooth phone (i.e. Sony t610)
3. Use phone as modem through bluetooth when wifi isn't present.

I think that this is the best and most powerful combination that I could get right now. Next step: deciding which company/plan to go with... or changing my mind again.

So this weekend marked the day that every girl in the world looks forward to, my Grandma's Birthday... also known as Valentine's day. Kari and I spent the day in town, I bought a $300 toolbox, ha. Kari also bought me a diagonal striped shirt from express for men, haha, I am metro now. Later, we went to Hy-Vee and picked out a bunch of stuff to make dinner at my APT. We don't normally cook, so we thought it'd be fun to try to cook, which it was. We made some awesome mushroom appetizers, shrimp, lobster, lemon peppered salmon, pasta, etc... we rule.

Sunday night there was a hip hop show with my friends from soft focus at vaudeville mews. Luke (know1) asked me to shoot video for them, so Kari and I went and met cedric there. The …

Yo check out the glacier we have sliding off the roof of the Shull building, it's been sliding for about a week now.

Outside - Inside

Harper always does this to me and I hate it.

Step 1: Harper keeps up on new technology big time (which is one advantage to having him as a friend
Step 2: Harper buys the new technology
Step 3: Harper shows it off to me
Step 4: I get jealous
Step 5: I read about the technology
Step 6: I learn that Harper is right and I want whatever it is that he bought
Step 7: I usually buy the product

This is cycle really stupid and usually expensive for me...

but anyway, Harper was IMing me from someone's car today via his Sidekick, which is step 3 from the cycle mentioned above. So I've already gotten over the Jealousy and read about the sidekick at danger.com.

It's got a full qwerty keyboard, AIM, unlimited email via the built in …

Instant Messaging is one of the greatest inventions ever, it opens a whole new world of friends... literally. I recently got invited to Orkut.com, which is super dorky, but also super fun and addicting.

The internet has also helped me meet several other people from around the world... example 1, Mart (a fellow soaper/skater):

Derek R Brooks: you are a douche
RG7420MC: You are an American
Derek R Brooks: haha
RG7420MC: Round one goes to Mart
RG7420MC: Cheers
Derek R Brooks:: you probably know more about the politics of my country than i do
RG7420MC: Ahahaha

I totally got ebay'd. About a week and a half ago there was a black Juggalo baseball jersey on ebay (one that i've wanted for like 4 years), so I bid $61 on it. I knew that I wouldn't win because they normally go for over $100, but whatever, I bid anyway.

As expected, I lost the auction, but only by a dollar, so I was sorta mad. So Anyway, while I was leaving for Denver, I got an email from ebay because the top bidder didn't pay, giving me 2 days to buy the jersey for only $61. Since I was traveling during this time, I didn't get the notice in time and the seller put it back up for auction. I looked at it and the first bidder was my buddy, Richie. So I emailed the seller and asked if he'd still sell it to me, but he just told me …